Flap over Census 2000 Count

On Friday, Commerce Secretary Don Evans announced that he, not the Census Bureau, would make the final call on whether to adjust the 2000 Census results to include the estimated undercount of just above one percent. This set off a storm of criticism from congressional Democrats who claimed the Bush administration was politicizing the Census count. (Most analysts believe that an adjusted count will lead to re-districtings favoring the Democrat's chances in the next congressional election.) The White House countered that such a decision is mandated to the appointed representatives of the elected President, not to bureaucrats. Former President Clinton had given the final say to the Director of the Census Bureau, ostensibly to de-politicize the process. But with re-districting stakes so high, it is unlikely that either Republicans or Democrats are ready to approach this issue as one of mere statistics. Indeed, the controversy of the last few years over sampling (a process whereby the Census Bureau makes statistical estimates of uncounted households using surveys of counted ones) has already made the issue the subject of two Supreme Court rulings. The acting director of the Census must make his recommendations by the first of March. Secretary Evans will issue a decision and final count by March 5th.